Monday, January 25, 2016

Mean Protagonists, Bossy People, Rejection, and Snow

1. Read an article about how the homeschooling rate is increasing in South Australia.

There aren't a lot of families doing it—only 651. But in 2006, there were only 374.

I think it's going to become more and more common.

2. Imagined that one day, schooled children might be the minority.

3. Read Tweets with the hashtag #YouknowyourAustralianwhen.

I think it's basically a forum for Australians to describe their various life experiences.

My favorites so far:

Camille's Tweet, #youknowyoureaustralian when you think you see a snake so you pick up a stick to hit it but it's the stick that's the snake
Ella's Tweet,#youknowyoureaustralianwhen u come out of the toilet w an interesting fact annd have to explain to your family that it came from ur pad wrapper
4. Started watching an episode of Wicked Science.

I's about not being invited to a birthday party.

5. Thought about the episode.

What happens is Bianca (Anya Trybala) doesn't invite Elizabeth (Bridget Neval) to her birthday party, so Bianca uses her magical science skills to ruin the birthday party by creating bad weather.

Maybe Bianca and her friends would have saved themselves some trouble if they hadn't excluded Elizabeth. Have they not heard the story of Sleeping Beauty?

6. Thought it was quite mean to invite everyone or almost everyone in the class, except one person—even if that one person is a brat.

7. Decided the show reminds me a bit of The Saddle Club in that the "good guys" are not much better than the villain.

8. Remembered something else in the episode.

Elizabeth plans to create a cyclone at the beach, which is very dangerous. This is supposed to be seen as a villainous act.

But then Toby (Andre de Vanny) stops Elizabeth's plan by relocating the cyclone to where Elizabeth is. Wouldn't that be dangerous as well?

If Toby was really that much better than Elizabeth, he would have just stopped the cyclone.

Or maybe he didn't know how.

9. Wondered if maybe I didn't watch close enough. Maybe Toby made sure that the cyclone was gentle.

10. Started watching the scene again, and saw that Elizabeth and her minions started a twister, not a cyclone.

11. Saw that Toby used a mylar balloon reflection to bring the twister to Elizabeth. I'm guessing this is the only idea he could come up with.

But still. He hears Elizabeth and her friends screaming in terror. He doesn't look at all concerned. In fact, he smiles about it.

13. Learned that Andy (Tai Hara) isn't opposed to having sex with Hannah (Cassie Howarth). He just didn't expect the opportunity to come so soon. Or so he says.

I think the idea of having sex with a paralyzed person might not appeal to him, so he wants to procrastinate.

14. Thought maybe Andy just needs time to get used to the idea.

I don't think Andy is a bad guy, and I don't think he's never going to want to have sex with Hannah again unless she regains movement of her legs.

He might just need to get used to the changes.

On the other hand, he should probably push himself a bit. It's hard enough for Hannah to deal with not being able to walk again. It would be better if she didn't have to have doubts about her boyfriends attraction to her.

15. Didn't like what John (Shane Withington) says about his son Jett (William Charles McDonald) not wanting to move.

When Jett slams the door in anger, John says Jett has to learn he can't always get his own way. Yet John's wife and son don't want to move. Isn't John really the one that's insisting he get his own way?

I think there are people who are very controlling and self-centered. They want things their way, and like to make the decisions. Sometimes they may try to sound open-minded. They'll say they're willing to listen to the ideas of others. But then those ideas are often quickly shut down. When these people hear plans that are in opposite to their own, especially if not solicited, they get agitated. Then they sometimes label the disagreeing individuals as selfish and difficult.

16. Started to worry I was actually describing myself.

17. Thought about it.

I can be a bit bossy sometimes—especially with traveling plans. On the other hand, I often feel I'm trying to balance what Tim wants with what Jack wants. Then there's also what I want.

18. Decided I'm not so awful usually. Jack talked about wanting to go to Disneyland next instead of Disney World. I let it be known that I prefer Disney World, and got him on my side. I didn't lay down the law, though. I just pleaded my case and won. Then later Jack went back to wanting to go to Disneyland, and he soon had ME convinced.

19. Thought about how I'm usually the one who makes the plans, but I definitely put other people's interests into consideration and am usually flexible about changing plans.

20. Thought about how sometimes I am bossy, but say the other person can have their way IF they follow my rules.

For example, I recently told Tim I'd be willing to move to a new house IF we get rid of every single cardboard box lying around our house, and all the junk. Our house is SO full of crap. I'm not having movers come to pack up all our crap so we can unpack the crap in a new house.

21. Thought Andy was being a jerk.

First of all, he tells Hannah that it's his job to take care of her. Of course, she gets even more upset at this. He's pretty much saying she's a burden.

Then Hannah releases Andy from his duty. She says he doesn't have to stay with her anymore. He doesn't fight back! He just walks out.

Is he relieved? Is he clueless?

If someone did that to me, I would assume they didn't want to be with me.

It's not like Hannah pretended she was one over the relationship. You know how fictional characters do that sometimes—they pretend to be disinterested in someone they love, because they think they're protecting them?

I know! Like Edward to Bella in Twilight.

What would it say about Bella if Edward rejected her by saying he understands he's a burden to her; she's free to go, and Bella just walked away? I think I'd conclude that Bella really wasn't that attracted to Edward and welcomed the chance to gain her freedom back.

22. Hoped Hannah will find a new man that will treat her right.

23. Thought of a situation in which I wouldn't fault Andy.

That is if he had stopped loving Hannah before the accident.

What if he had wanted to break up with her before the accident, but hadn't gotten around to it?

He'd be kind of stuck now, because people would think the worst of him if he dumped Hannah while she was struggling with her injuries.

If I remember correctly, there was a storyline like that in the movie 50/50. The girlfriend wanted out of the relationship, and then the boyfriend got cancer. She was presented as a bitch for not doing enough to support him. But I think if she had loved him, she would have done more.

It's a really difficult situation.

Is it Andy and Hannah's situation? I don't know. Because the Hulu episodes begin after the bus crash. I don't know what was going on with Andy and Hannah before that.

The other cast member is Nathan Stone. He's also the writer and director. His name sounds less German to me.

Is he German? Australian? Other?

35. Saw that Nathan Stone usually does visual effects work. He was digital compositor for a movie I saw a week or so ago—Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead.

36. Googled digital compositor, because I don't know what that is.

Lord Wiki says it involves combining layers in a film.

37. Read another website about digital compositing. I think I sort of get it, but not enough to explain it.

What I'm thinking is it's like when I used to edit films. On the program, there are multiple layers for visual and audio. So one layer might have your footage; then another layer might have some sort of overlay—for example, titles or other video

38. Remembered in one of my home videos, I actually got fancy and had over-lay flashbacks using past videos.

39. Looked through Nathan Stone's credits. He's done work in Asia, Germany, and Australia—maybe other places as well.

40. Googled and learned that Nathan Stone, along with a guy named Stuart Campbell, have a visual effects company called Double Barrel VFX.

It's located in Perth.

The two guys work with film, television, video games, and probably other things.

41. Started to watch the Double Barrel VFX reel. It starts off grim—people injured in a car accident.
Now I'm seeing fire and a plane crash.

This isn't a happy video.

42. Thought the film was neat, because it shows the original footage. Then a line goes by and we're shown the doctored result.

43. Saw from Twitter that Tony Abbott is meeting with a controversial religious group in the US. It seems they're anti-gay.

45. Learned that Alan Sears, the founding president of Alliance Defending Freedom wrote a book entitled, The Homosexual Agenda: Exposing the Principal Threat to Religious Liberty Today.

It reminds me of someone we have in our lives. We were talking about Modern Family, and he complained about the homosexual agenda. Or maybe he called it the liberal agenda. I forget.

46. Wanted to say that one of the things I like about Crash Course is John Green talks about how freedom is defined in different ways. For some, it's freedom from big government. For others, it's freedom from poverty and starvation.

For some people, freedom is being able to marry the person you love.

For others, freedom is being free from having neighbours who are in a same-sex marriage.

Saw from Twitter that Triple J now has their 2015 countdown!

I guess it's an Australia Day thing.

47. Saw from the Triple J website that the countdown is actually not finished, because it's in progress.

It will be going on through out the day.

Right now, they have songs 100-95 up.

48. Started looking at the nationalities of 95-100.

49. Saw that song 94 is there now.

50. Counted.

Out of the six bottom songs, three are Australian, two are British, one is American, and one is British and American.

51. Tried to decide if I want to go through the list like I did with the 2014 one.

I think maybe I will, but after I finish with all the Tropfest films.

52. Decided to listen to the live countdown for a little bit. That's kind of exciting.

The identity of Golden Features was a secret. Then it was revealed that it was a longtime Sydney producer. Apparently, there's a trend with that—people making music and being mysterious about their identity.

It's like The Bad Lip Reading video guy. I really want to know who that is!

About Me

Hello! You are probably here, because you've seen me commenting on your blog and you're wondering..."Who is this strange woman?" Or you've been reading my blog and am wondering "Who's writing this weird stuff?" I do like that you're looking at my profile though, because that means you're curious. I like curious people. AND you're giving me attention. I like attention.
So thanks for visiting! I hope you're having a safe, healthy, happy, and silly day. Or night. You might be reading this at night. I hope you're not up because you had a scary dream...or have chronic insomnia.